Late Caller
by MooseOnARoof
Summary: One-shot fic set post- The Social Contract. House gets a home visit from a drunken Wilson. Full of House/Wilson friendship goodness. R&R would be awesome. Some minor use of language.


**Don't own House or Wilson. MASSIVE shame. **

**A/N One-shot fic. House gets a drunken visit from Wilson and friendship goodness ensues. Soppy and lovely in equal amounts hopefully.**

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House lay almost spread eagled on his double bed in silent sleep apart from the small snoring noises that came from his mouth. Good sleep was a rare and almost foreign concept to him, but the day had been filled with absolutely nothing which had made him more tired then if he actually had something to do. House hated being bored but it sometimes allowed him to relax and to drift off.

His deep slumber was disturbed by a strange clinking noise from outside his apartment door, followed by somebody seemingly scratching at the lock. It was like someone was trying to unlock his front door. His eyes opened suddenly and he sat upright in his bed. _What the hell is that?_ He carefully manoeuvred himself out of the side of the bed, gently pushing his right leg out from under the covers.

Whoever was at the door was still scratching around, very much struggling to open the lock however they were trying. House limped his way to the side of the bedroom and grabbed his cane. He swung the cane up behind his head and edged towards the front door. The pain in is leg was agonising but he was too wound up to really notice. He pushed his back up against the wall and shuffled along the last stretch of wall before the door. Swinging the cane up above his head, he gently leaned over and unclipped the lock slowly on the door.

_Click_. He quickly flung open the door and after seeing what confronted him, he threw the cane back onto his sofa.

"Wilson? What the hell are you doing?" House noticed that Wilson was still trying to pick the lock even though there was nothing there. "Hey! Wiiilllsoon!" He clapped his hands in front of Wilson's face.

Wilson staggered back and almost lost his footing but managed to push himself back off the wall. He lifted his head up to meet House's eyes and squinted. "Huh? W-what are...are you... um... wow. What are...you doing in my... a-a-apartment, man?"

"_Your _apartment? You mean _my_ apartment." House slapped Wilson's face up as his head lolled down again. "Are you drunk?" He knew the answer was yes but seeing Wilson trying to converse in his inebriated state was too funny to pass on.

Wilson wagged his finger and blinked slowly. "Nope...Well yeah... kind of-of... ish." He propped his hand up on the wall to keep his balance. He looked around where he was standing and looked back at House. "This isn't my... um... my apartment." He poked at the wall outside House's apartment in disgust.

"No shit Jimmy boy." House shook is head and smiled to himself. He had never seen Wilson drunk properly in a long time. A bit glassy here and there but never fully blown can't-find-your-home drunk. It was amusing in many respects but also signalled that something wasn't quite right. Wilson didn't drink for the sake of drinking like House himself did.

He reached out for Wilson's shoulder and gave him a shake. "You want to come inside."

"Pfft" Wilson managed to spit onto House's t-shirt. "Nah man...It's good." Wilson waved his left hand wildly in suggestion. "I'm good...It's good man." He sniggered to himself for a reason not apparent to House.

House raised his eyebrows. _"Man?_ Since when have you used that word? How old are you? 17?" House had noted over the years of their friendship that a good indication of the drunken state of his good friend was the amount of _man_'s he managed to squeeze into his speech. He had counted four so far and add this to the strong odour of a fine whisky and House came to the conclusion that Wilson was steaming drunk.

Still struggling to hold himself up, Wilson began to stagger towards the entrance door of the block.

"Hey! Where do you think you're going Jimmy? Come on in. You'll never make it home in your state." House reached out and grabbed Wilson by the back of his jacket and pulled him towards the door to his apartment.

Wilson slid backwards with the force of House's pulling. "Hey. Hey House man... It's all...um..good. I can get home. I got... the place.. with the brown door man." He slipped backwards on his foot and landed in his House's arms.

House grabbed Wilson by the arms and heaved him slowly inside. "Will you stop saying _man? _You sound like a 17 year old surfer-dude and you are definitely not a surfer-dude nor 17." He managed to muscle Wilson's drunkenly limp body onto the sofa and then went shut his front door.

Wilson managed to push himself upright on the sofa. His hair was a dishevelled mess with tufts of thick brown hair sticking up all over the place. "Hey. I'm home." He gave a cocky grin.

House sighed and leant over the back sofa. "No you're not. You're in _my _apartment. It's two in the morning and you've woke me up. So just go to sleep so I can too." As amusing as Wilson was, this was getting somewhat repetitive.

"House! This is your apartment." House rolled his eyes and nodded slowly in Wilson's direction.

"Well observed detective." House picked up his cane off the side of the sofa that was vacant. "Now go to sleep"

"I can't. I don't want to."

_Oh for god's sake_. House grumbled under his breath. He walked round and took his place next to Wilson on the sofa. "What do you want?"

"To...um...To talk."

"About...." House gazed intently at Wilson for the answer.

"Stuff." Wilson shrugged, although his entire body seemed to move for this one small movement.

_Stuff. Couldn't be more vague if you tried Jimmy._ "Stuff... What kind of stuff?"

"I don't know. J-just stuff stuff." Wilson looked somewhat dejected in his inability to be more specific.

_Stuff stuff! Wow this is getting circular_. "OK. You're not helping me here."

Wilson shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "Well stuff about you.... about me and...s-stuff." He gave his head a small scratch. "I mean..like.. how are you doing and stuff?" Wilson turned his head to face House.

"I'm good. I would be better if I was asleep though."

"Come...come on House. Be s-serious here. I feel like h-having a talk."

"And I feel like having a sleep." House went to get up but he felt Wilson's hand on his leg pulling him back down.

"Please...House." Wilson eyed House up, begging him to stay.

House hadn't noticed it before but he was sure he could see a small swelling underneath Wilson's right eye. "OK. Sure. I'll stay." He took his seat back down on the sofa, curious to find out how Wilson managed to get himself a black eye.

"Thank you." Wilson smiled weakly. "So you...you OK and stuff?"

"Yes. I am fine and stuff. Really." He lied. Nothing was ever really 'fine' with House it was just bearable. "How about you?" He tried to gauge Wilson's reaction by his face.

Wilson scrunched up his nose. "Well...not-not so good."

House spotted the small spots of tears culminating in Wilson's eyes. "How so?"

"I went... to see Danny again this morning." Wilson sniffed back hard. "It didn't go so well." He shoved a trembling hand through his hair.

"No?" House had a bad feeling about Wilson and Danny from the start. He had a feeling the good beginning to their reunited brotherhood wouldn't last. "What happened?" He put an arm around Wilson's shoulder. House felt a weird sensation. Was he actually overtly showing his caring side? _Wilson will be too drunk to remember this surely_?He kept his arm around Wilson's shoulder regardless of what his head told him to do. This was his best friend after all.

Wilson wiped his nose with his sleeve. "He brought _it_ up. You know...._it."_ He rubbed the dampness from his eyes. "He asked me why I put the phone down on him."

House sighed. He knew that was a sore subject for Wilson. He knew Wilson had no brilliant answer for it either and that is what had haunted him for so long. The fact that he had a choice and he chose the one that hurt his family the most.

"I didn't know what to say!" Wilson's sounded infinitely more sober than he did ten minutes ago. "I mean I put it down because I needed to study for my midterms. But how do you say that to somebody who took so much more from it?"

House had no answer for that. But he tried to comfort Wilson the best he could. "You didn't know how he would have reacted." _God House. Was the best you could have come up with?_

"No but he was schizophrenic. I knew him better than anyone else in the family. I mean we were close House. Really close. I knew how to deal with him, how to calm him down, how to get through to him past all that paranoid crap that was in his head." Wilson lowered his head in defeat as House's hand still rested on his shoulder.

"Exactly Wilson. He's a schizophrenic. He's unpredictable. You can't always get your thoughts right about how he would react." Wilson's head lifted a little. "You can't always get it right." _Wow, Gregory House, that was actually nice._

Wilson lay back onto the sofa and pulled House's arm over his head and put it on the sofa next to him. He breathed in hard. "I told him the truth. That I was studying for my midterms. That I needed some time to myself. To think and stuff."

"You're an idiot." Wilson glared at House in shock. "You shouldn't have told him that."

"Well what the hell was I supposed to say? I can't lie to him."

"Why the hell not? He's a schizo. He's makes crap up all the time."

"What the hell is wrong with you? I come here to talk and you insult my brother." Wilson turned away in disgust.

"Hey Wilson come on. Listen.. that was harsh what I said... But seriously, why didn't you just lie to him?"

Wilson turned back and cleared his throat. "I just can't. I've never been able to." Wilson shrugged his shoulders. "I needed him to feel like he had an ally with all the stuff going on in his head. Someone who would talk and listen. Someone who would tell him the truth and not bullshit him. Is that so wrong?" House shook his head lightly. "I couldn't break a habit of a lifetime."

"I assume he took it badly then."

Wilson looked up at House sorrowfully. "You can say that. He got up out of his chair and punched me in the face."

"Yeah. I noticed the eye." House gave a sympathetic smile.

Wilson gave a weak grin in response but it faded quickly. "He told me that I was no different to my parents and my brother. That I had always wanted him out of the way so we could live as a normal family. That I had been in on this stupid conspiracy he had made up in his head." Wilson leaned his elbows on his knees.

"And you weren't..?" House asked nonchalantly.

"Don't be an ass House. Of course I wasn't. If anything I would rather have Danny then any other member of my family." Wilson's bottom lip began to tremble. "But his face when I told him why I put that phone down. You should have seen it. He looked so wounded and hurt." A single tear rolled down his cheek. "He told me he never wanted to see me ever again as I was just another one of '_them_'. And then they dragged him away."

House froze. He didn't know where to put himself. Wilson was in front of him in tears and he didn't know how to comfort his best friend. _Give him a hug you moron._ But Gregory House didn't do hugs. At least not to people he wasn't paying for the pleasure.

_Oh what the hell_. He leant over and gave Wilson a hug, wrapping his arms around Wilson's arms and shoulders. Wilson reciprocated and wrapped his arms around House's chest. Wilson continued to cry into House's chest as House gave awkward pats on Wilson's back. He was not used to this at all.

"Hey hey. That's enough crying, weepy boy." He gently pushed Wilson's head away from him.

Wilson sniffed and grinned. "Bet that was hard for you huh?" He wiped his face with his sleeve.

"You bet your ass it was." Wilson gave out a chuckle as House smiled. "This will never be talked about. Deal?"

Wilson nodded. "Deal" They shook each other's hands firmly.

"Well it's three in the morning which means The L Word is on." House grabbed the remote and flicked on the TV.

"And you know this how?" Wilson was amazed at House's knowledge of the TV schedules.

"I don't sleep remember." House shifted himself comfortably into the seat.

"I feel like such a crappy brother." Wilson took off his tear soaked jacket.

"Quit bitching. You may be a shit brother but you're an awesome best friend. Who else would watch this crap with me at three in the morning?"

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**A/N Well wasn't that a lovely bowl of sop at the end. Aww. **


End file.
